Is it a sound business decision to locate a Coffee Republic franchise in Finchley Central?

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GCSE Business Studies Coursework

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Is it a sound business decision to locate a Coffee Republic Franchise in Finchley Central?

Aim:-

The aim of my business studies coursework is to investigate whether locating a new Coffee Republic franchise in Finchley Central is a sound business decision or not.

This term ‘sound business decision’ means decisions that are based on specific and current information which can take more than natural instinct. They have to have specific characteristics to determine whether the business can make a profit. A sound business decision is one that will:

  • Have a future
  • Make a profit
  • Be able to meet a need
  • Attract investment to the area
  • Generate positive cash flow
  • Offer a high rate of return
  • Fend off competitors
  • Be marketed feasibly

 

Introduction:-

The purpose of this coursework is to find out whether a Coffee Republic located in Finchley Central will be a good decision or not. This could be influenced by many aspects such as population, amount of disposable income etc. I will go into these in more detail further on into this coursework.

Coffee Republic was formed in 1995 by Bobby and Sahar Hashemi, a brother and sister team. Since then, Coffee Republic has grown to be one of the best known and largest independent espresso bar brands in the UK, with bars all across the UK from Manchester to Brighton and Birmingham to Bluewater.  I will be investigating the possibility of situating a new franchise of Coffee Republic in Finchley Central. A franchise is an authorization to sell another company’s goods or provide another company’s services in a particular area. In order to open up a franchise, specific requirements have to be met such as size, fees and legal documents. The advantages of franchising is that the business is based on a proven idea and its easy to check how successful other franchises are before opening one up. Also, a recognised brand name can be used and there are capital earned from advertising and promotion would go to the franchisor. However, franchising can have adverse disadvantages also. Costs to set franchises up are very high. The initial costs of buying the franchise is high and after this the franchisee continues to pay monthly payments for the upkeep of the business. Furthermore, there are restrictions involved when being the franchisee, such as adjustments being made as the market keeps changing. 

Examples of multinational franchises are McDonalds, Subway and Holiday Inn. Before locating a branch, businesses have to think about many factors to consider, such as:

Accessibility – Whether or not the location is close to motor ways, raw materials and can be accessible by the disabled.

Labour force – Whether or not there are a reasonable number of people actively seeking work that can become employed.

Customer base – Whether your target consumers live in the area where you are planning to locate the new business.

Competition – Whether or not there are other competitors in the same market as the business opening the new branch.

Government incentives – Whether the area is run down or derelict and the business would like to locate there, then the government gives a certain amount of money to the business to start up.

Map of Finchley Central:-

Finchley Central is located in the hub of Finchley; its bordering areas include North Finchley and Woodside Park. It has various transport links such as motorways and other forms of public transport bus stops and tube stations. The main tube station is Finchley Central Tube Station with a 2007 London Underground usage of 4.942 million. The tube station serves eight different London Buses that link it to the other parts of London. North Finchley is in the London Borough of Barnet. It is between 8-10 miles from Central London.

Collection of information:-

In order for me to investigate whether Finchley Central is a sound place to locate a new Coffee Republic franchise; I had to collect an assortment of information and data. Most of the data I collected was primary data. Primary data is data that that someone must gather themselves; it cannot be looked up somewhere and collected because no one has put data like this together before. A few examples of primary data which I collected were the Environmental Quality Index (EQI) and pedestrian count. Some of this primary data can be described as being qualitative data. This means that it is data that only measure unclear data, such as peoples' attitudes and opinions. An example of this is the Environmental Quality Index as it shows my personal opinion on what the area was like. The benefits of this kind of data are that it has an opportunity for better detailed answers and it is more practical and creates a higher degree of accuracy. Other data can be classified as being quantitative, which is data showing numeric information including quantities, percentages, and statistics. The benefits of this kind of data are that this type of data is very specific and generalized as it is represented as numbers. It is also very breadth, so it can be compared across many types of results, which can be made into graphs for more clear data presentation. I also had to collect various types of secondary data to help me with my decision. This secondary data focused on external factors such as the demography of the area. Secondary data is data that has already been collected for a different purpose by someone else, which I will use to help me with this coursework. Examples of secondary research that has been collected are population statistics from the census, rates, and the levels of income, all of which tie in with the demography of the area. Another piece of vital secondary data can be obtained from . This provides information on the nearest coffee shops in Finchley Central, so this can help me evaluate the amount of competitors in the area. The final piece of secondary data I will be using is the information obtained from the Coffee Republic franchise pack found on the website, which has the steps to creating a franchise, so I’m able to see what creating a Coffee Republic franchise involves.

I will now summarize these different forms of data collection in the table overleaf.

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Overleaf, I have annotated our data collection sheets for the Environmental Quality Index and the traffic and pedestrian survey in depth, to explain each part of the sheet and what it means.

Annotation of data collection sheets:-

Environmental Quality Index:-

Traffic and Pedestrian Count:-

The questionnaire that we produced was created as a class. We were asked to think of five questions and write them ...

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